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So as I said earlier my oldest niece, Nina Rayne, turned sweet 16 a few weeks ago. I was 12 when Nina was born, if it weren’t for her you guys would know nothing about me, or my silly little blankets. I asked my mother to teach me how to crochet just so I could make things for Nina, I made her two blankets in her first year and a few ugly hats. When she turned 12 she asked my mother to teach her how to crochet, its how we bond.

This is my beautiful niece with my her father/my brother, Christopher.

I was still young when Nina was born, I often felt more like her big sister than her aunt. My brother lived below us in a small 3 family building until Nina was 5 or 6, we grew up a little together… so sometimes I hated her, I was definitely jealous of her, but most of the time I loved her– just like a big sister/aunt should. Once I was in high school, around when Nina was 3, was when I really began to love hanging out with her. I became overwhelmed with this feeling that I had to instill some old fashioned values in her. I’d steal her away to my room and we’d listen to quality music and watch old tv and movies together. I used to think she was the coolest little kid because she knew all the words to The Partridge Family theme song, Come on Get Happy. I used to put the song on and make her sing it for my friends to show off how awesome I was making her. She’d teach me all about her Furby and I’d teach her all about Alf, it was a fair exchange.

I’m not sure if my attempts to shape her young mind stuck, but she’s still pretty awesome. I got a bit tipsy at her sweet 16, the nostalgia was too much for me. Its weird to see her all grown up. I sort of feel like I blinked and missed all of it.

I still have her Furby, I stole it once she grew tired of it, it sits on my bedside table.

This is my first time sitting at my computer for more than 5 minutes in over 2 months. It feels pretty great, although the screen in giving me a headache, I’m not quite used to this anymore. I’ve missed you guys! I know we don’t usually speak, but I feel your presence through my views counter, so I know I’m not talking to myself… which is nice. I’m behind on so many aspects of my life. I’ve had to come up with strategies for surviving the holiday season as a microscopic business owner, hopefully next season won’t include a life altering natural disaster. Fingers crossed.

I have a wedding to plan. Every time I see people, which (trust me) has been very rare lately, they ask about how my wedding plans are coming along. I have a dress, a venue and a 9+ hour playlist of love songs… as for everything else, I have slightly over 8 months to plan for. Ahh!

I mailed out my last holiday order today. It was the most amazing sigh of relief I’ve felt in over 10 weeks. I have several more orders to fulfill, but there’s something about that devilish holiday title that adds so much pressure. If I’m a few days behind schedule now, I know its not the end of the world. But, I just mailed my last holiday order… 6 days after Christmas. It felt horrible. I’m a douche, I hate me. I have a pretty good excuse, that no one on the receiving end of a week late present is gonna care about, but I do.

This guy had a very special birthday, lets just say he turned 29 for the second time. He’s still a bit sensitive about aging. He’s been so patient about losing me to crocheting. For two months he had no couch snuggling partner, had to cook all the meals and do all the cleaning (our apartment was pretty messy) and he had to go to bed alone every night and get woken up between 3 and 6am by me climbing in to sleep. I owed him, so I promised I would take off for his birthday weekend and we’d go away to celebrate, just us. We went up to Hudson and had an amazing time… unfortunately the night before we left for home, Terrence got the flu. And the next day he gave it to me, but I got it a million times worse than he did and wanted to die for about a week and a half. That’s my excuse. I was sick for Christmas and the week leading up to it, it was miserable. I tried several times to sit up and crochet but my body laughed at me and patted my head so I had to lay back down. The worst.

It seemed like the holidays, although I’d been a slave to them for over two months, never came for me. Halloween passed us by because of Hurricane Sandy, Thanksgiving snuck up on us and we just barely caught it, and Christmas did the same. I actually had to go out and shop on Christmas Eve… devil. I kind of want a do-over. Which is ok, since my family celebrates Three Kings Day, I still have one last chance to do something right. Maybe.

Even this lead image up there… we took that about 30 minutes to midnight on Christmas day and emailed our loved ones with 5 minutes to spare. I was working on our costumes during drinks after Christmas dinner. Turned out ok though, I think. We went for a Zissou Christmas theme this year, theirs a story behind it… but I may have blabbed enough for one post so I’ll tell you about it later.

Happy New Year! We’ll catch up some more soon, promise. For now I have a little music to catch up on, I owe Riley a few months of soundtrack.